September 18, 2007

Another First Day

Yesterday was Boyish's first day of nursery school. Nursery here is often attached to a primary school, so he's attending school just downstairs from Girlish, and wearing a uniform just like hers. Which works, because he worships everything she does.

So he's off to school in his uniform, fussing about his shoes and his shirt. Many days, he wages war with his clothes, which includes spinning in a circle, tugging and screaming on the offending article until he is able to rip it from his body. Once freed of the shirt, underwear, socks, shoes or pants that have infuriated him, he flings them across the room. Once he threw them out the window, but because I am a hardass I have put a stop to that.

Anyway, because he was admitted to the nursery the third week of school, there were no white shirts in his size at Sainsbury's, which is the large supermarket/Wal-Mart-wannabe here. So his shirts are too big, and um, if I thought he would let me tuck them in so they wouldn't hang down to his knees, I can FORGET IT. The deal we struck is that he has to wear his "jumper" (that's English for sweatshirt) over the too-long shirt. No jumper, we tuck the shirt in.

So far, that's working--but don't get me started on shoes.

All this week they're "phasing him in," so he's attending from 9 to 11:30, and then next week we'll hopefully be in for some full days. He would be happy to go all day, of course, but I get it--the sissy kids need the phase-in, so phase in we must. Which means three 20-minute trips up the hill to school this week, every day, and three 15-minute trips back. It's a pretty steep hill, did I mention that?

Here's a picture of the Head Teacher's big bell. I'm afraid to ask her if I can have a shot of her ringing it. I'll have to butter her up some. But that's for later, right now I've got pack Babe-ish in the buggy and head back up the hill. Anything for my chickens, right? And all this uphill walking is bound to be good for my ass.